Nathaniel

Shockey

Read Nathaniel's bio and previous columns here

August 11, 2008

They Only Look Like Adults

American youth are behind the maturity curve. Even for those kids whose parents remain together – which is a crapshoot – they don’t necessarily have real mentors. The primary influence on American youth these days is American youth. They grow up surrounded by 20 kids their age and a few teachers, and it continues like this until they graduate from college, which, these days, many consider as necessary as high school. So by the time a person reaches the age of 22, he has little idea how to handle money, little understanding of complex social and political issues, and as was my case, no idea how to do the laundry.

They look like adults, but are they really?
 

Consider 17-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears, Britney’s little sister, who recently gave birth. What’s currently garnering a lot of media attention is how quickly her teenage body recovered from the pregnancy. Many people are well aware that a woman’s body reassumes its original shape much more easily after a young pregnancy. But when everyone got a good a look at how quickly it actually happened, they were shocked.

Said one commentator, regarding Jamie Lynn, “Just to be clear, I don't want this post encouraging young readers to consider teenage pregnancy because your body apparently snaps right back into shape like nothing ever happened. So, that being said, good God!”

The truth is that, in all of recorded history, women have been giving birth since their early teenage years. Having three or four kids before one’s 20^th birthday has been the norm for most of human history. So why should it surprise us to see young women consistently giving birth to healthy babies?

It’s because we just can’t wrap our minds around the fact that American bodies seem to mature about twice as quickly as American minds.

But perhaps worse than the reality that America consistently churns out 22-year-olds going on 14 is the way we treat them as though they’re the best thing we have going for us. America worships youth.

Columnist and radio talk show host Dennis Prager wrote: “Most adults throughout history have recognized that young people are likely to be unwise given their minuscule amount of life experience. After all, most adults, even among baby boomers, believe that they themselves are wiser today than 10 years ago, let alone than when they were 20 years old.”

And yet, we tend to regard (or perhaps more accurately, disregard) our elders as out of touch, and embrace anything and everything coming from the younger generations. But why? Because young people are better looking?

Prager notes the ’60s and ’70s, which featured a youth uprising largely responsible for America’s withdrawal from Vietnam, in writing: “If one believes that the American attempt to prevent South Vietnam from falling under communist totalitarian rule was an immoral, imperialist venture, then America's young people were terrific.”

America’s youth, so many of whom are taught by ex-hippie professors, are vastly guilty of simplifying Vietnam and Iraq, considering them international blunders carried out by power-hungry, war-mongering old people. So many of the original baby boomers relived the glory days of cursing Vietnam as America stumbled through the first few years of the Iraq War. I know because these were my college professors. But really, is it too much to ask even those who lean toward pacifism or isolationism, even those who see no good reason to send a soldier to his potential death, to recognize there were understandable reasons for America’s entry into Vietnam, just as there were for America’s military dealings with Iraq?

Of course I’m biased. I am a conservative, and most politically conscious 20-somethings are liberals. But anyone from any political persuasion can realize there are a lot of immature adults running rampant, wasting money, wasting time and voting for really stupid reasons. The longer it takes Americans to grow up, the greater the percentage of Americans who are extremely immature. The math does not bode well for our country.

We must demand more from our children and from ourselves. We need to relearn what it means to respect our elders. The chances are not good that there will be any sort of miraculous change in American schools within the next few decades. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, but it does mean we have to do the best with what we have.

I can’t imagine any of us would ever want our 16-year-old daughter to get pregnant. But that shouldn’t stop us from teaching our kids what it means to be a grownup as soon as possible. Isn’t that a parent’s job?

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

Click here to talk to our writers and editors about this column and others in our discussion forum.

To e-mail feedback about this column, click here. If you enjoy this writer's work, please contact your local newspapers editors and ask them to carry it.

This is Column # NS127. Request permission to publish here.